


There Is a Yellow Door

by glitziied



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Other, i just think that they both need someone to hold their hand, jonathan sims getting a crush on the spiral is the relatable content im here for, spoilers from ep 101 to ep 121
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23145352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitziied/pseuds/glitziied
Summary: Jonathan Sims has been trying his best to ignore the yellow door that keeps appearing in his house.He's not very good at ignoring things, though.
Relationships: Michael/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 26
Kudos: 180





	There Is a Yellow Door

The Spiral has taken a liking to him, Jon muses to himself as he hangs his bag on a dining table chair.

There's a yellow door where there shouldn't be one, right next to the window looking out of his small apartment. Jon should probably be more concerned, but he's starting to grow accustomed to the sight.

So far, it's left him alone. Nothing has ever come out of it when in his home, nothing has even tried. There is just a door, warm and inviting yet seemingly content to simply sit there, as if it all it wants is to _be_ there.

Of course, he never goes through the door. He knows better- he doesn't want to end up like Helen or any of the many others who have disappeared into its halls and games. He’s tried his best not to let his guard down around it, but so far, Michael has seemed more curious and intrigued by Jon than dangerous. 

(He hopes he doesn't regret this judgement.)

However, when Jon is finished making himself a cup of tea, he still chooses to drink it in his bedroom. Next time he passes by the kitchen, the door is gone.

* * *

The door appears in his dreams now, too.

In a way, Jon is relieved. It is not something that can reach out to hurt him, not something that can drag him into its grip. It simply is, often appearing in the background of another hellish flashback that does not belong to him.

Other times, it appears to Jon as he breaks free of whatever is terrorizing him currently, welcoming as if offering him a refuge. On some occasions, it's practically daring him, using his need to _Know_ against him, whispering tantalizing promises of all that lies behind the bright, freshly painted yellow.

Jon turns and passes it. Why go searching for a new nightmare?

His resolve only lasts a few weeks, though. The curiosity gnaws at him until it is too much to bear and he is turning the handle, unable to stop as it draws him in and shuts the door behind him. 

Logically, Jon knows that the Spiral is probably the most likely thing to genuinely be dangerous to his sleeping self. But he does not feel the same fear that typically pervades him, instead choosing to wander down the corridors until he's dizzy with the absolute insensibility.

He walks into a coffee shop.

He recognizes the shop, it's the one Sasha frequents and the one where Michael first introduced itself to her. He's only been once or twice, when craving something other than the typical office tea.

There’s the gentle buzz of life, of chattering and mid-day energy. Except all other patrons and employees have been replaced by swirling streaks of color, floating and changing in their places. All but one, a blond man sitting in the center of the cafe with a smile slightly too wide and hands vaguely disproportionate. He is looking directly at Jon.

Michael. 

As Jon steps closer, it starts to shift, as if the light is bending around its form, just enough to cause Jon's eyes to lose focus for a moment. 

"You finally came, Archivist," it says, it's voice a familiar blur of what could nearly be a normal, human sound. "I was wondering how much longer it would take for your curiosity to get the better of you."

Jon's not sure when he seated himself across from it. His eyes are intensely trained on its own. They look like normal eyes, but Jon knows deep down that they are wrong, that they are as wrong as the rest of it, like a song that you've known for years but a singular chord from the guitar has been changed.

"Were you waiting for me?" He asks, though he suspects he already knows the answer.

Michael’s smile grows. "It is quite interesting watching you, watching how you change and grow and twist." It lets out a small laugh, its typical kind which makes the hair on the back of Jon's neck stand and would cause his head to swim if it were any louder. "Ironic, isn’t it? That I am the one who enjoys the watching?”

Jon isn't quite sure what the joke is.

"Are you the actual Michael?"

Michael tilts his head. "Am I Michael? What a curious question. I am as much the true me now, as I am the "actual" Michael in the waking world." 

Jon frowns. “Are you planning to hurt me?” That’s what always happens in his dreams.

Michael makes a soft _hmm_ -ing sound, the noise twisted like every other word that comes out of it. “No, I don’t think so. For now, at least.”

Looking down, Jon realizes that there’s a cup of tea waiting for him. He furrows his brows, he is not sure when it appears. He picks up the cup to take a sip, the thought that maybe he _shouldn’t_ drink from something provided by one of the terrors in his dream not crossing his mind until too late. Luckily for him, it tastes exactly like his favorite blend of tea. However, it goes down like static and he feels jarred, like his soul has been pushed slightly to the left of where it should be. Within an instant, however, he is back to normal. He sets down the tea.

“Why am I here then?”

To this, Michael simply gives a shrug. “I would not know, Archivist- why _are_ you here?”

He isn’t sure, so he finishes his tea, shuddering with every gulp.

It’s okay though, this is a pitiful excuse for a nightmare.

* * *

From then on, Jon doesn’t avoid the yellow door in his dreams.

* * *

Jon comes home so exhausted he doesn’t even consider the dangers of finally entering Michael’s realm in the waking world as he walks into the long, familiar corridor.

His entire body is screaming for him to finally get much-deserved sleep, but Jon feels like he’ll lose his mind if he tries to rest at home all alone. 

At least he can appreciate the irony of actively seeking out something that still could be a threat if it decided to be.

He doesn’t find the cafe this time, or the pottery studio, or any of the other revolving series of locations the hallways in his dreams sends him to. Instead he simply walks until he has no choice but to sink to a stop. Which, considering the state of things, doesn’t take very long.

“Michael,” he calls out, before he shuts his eyes and lays his head against the patterned carpet. He feels numb all over, _has_ been feeling numb all over, but at this moment it rushes over him like a thick curtain falling. 

He hears the sound of steps coming towards him, and doesn’t look up. Despite the thick carpet, it sounds like the click of new shoes on marble. Jon doesn’t question it.

Heavy hands stroke his arm gently, using only the palm but unmistakable regardless. It feels like wet sand pouring over his skin. “Oh, Archivist, what trouble have you gotten yourself into now?” Jon wants to attempt a response, but not enough to actually do so. When he opens his eyes to look at it, he is in his own bed and mid-day sun is filtering through the window. The now-unfamiliar feeling of relief after a full night of good sleep comes rushing through moments later. 

Jon tries to ignore how soft the comforter feels around him, a stark contrast to the worn sheets he has never bothered to replace. He has never owned yellow bedding.

* * *

“I’ve come to a decision, Archivist. I am going to kill you.”

Jon probably should react differently than he does. Maybe should’ve felt scared, should’ve felt betrayed, should’ve felt mad at himself for not keeping his guard up. Not that it would’ve changed what’s about to happen.

Instead, he simply accepts it.

And then the door doesn’t open, that familiar yellow door refusing to swing out the one time it needs to. And Michael is screaming, something awful and inhuman and something unlike Jon has ever heard before. It makes him feel like the waves crashing against a lighthouse in the sea, the torrent shattering the windows. 

What steps out the door is _not_ Michael, yet Jon has a feeling that this is what whatever Michael was has become.

Hours later, when he finally breaks down in tears, alone in the Archives, he tells himself that it's only for himself and everything he’s gone through in the past month. He tells himself it has nothing to do with the nagging feeling that he lost the only thing he could possibly consider a friend.

* * *

Jon is dreaming.

He does not know where the yellow door leads anymore.

He doesn’t open it.

* * *

Jon _thinks_ he is dreaming.

He has been dreaming for a long time.

He isn’t sure when it will end.

* * *

He finally goes through the door.

He is still dreaming.

He is tired of dreaming.

* * *

Jon walks through those halls for ages. He doesn’t really have a sense of time anymore.

He wonders if he will simply continue walking forever. Compared to the many other things he’s seen, he considers this a better option regardless.

At this point, Jon is used to the repeating, endless nothingness. Even if the nightmares that plague him are full of gut-wrenching scenes, in the end, that’s what they are- empty.

Jon finds the cafe. It’s even emptier than before.

He takes his usual seat, swallowing at the empty spot across the small two-person table. There’s not even a swirl of color where Michael should be. 

However, his usual cup of tea still materializes before him. Without even thinking about it, he picks it up and drinks it down in rapid gulps. The static fills him, but stronger than ever before, and Jon nearly chokes as he drinks. When the thorns finally clear from behind his eyes, Michael is sitting in front of him.

For the first time in who knows how long, something in his dreams manages to surprise him.

Michael stares at him, its smile unnervingly wide like usual. When Jon doesn't do anything but sit there, slightly bewildered, Michael laughs. It's a sound that Jon had never expected to miss.

As if reading his mind, Michael says, "Miss me, Archivist?"

Whatever's come over him snaps in an instant, and Jon scowls. "What are you doing here?"

Michael's eyes widen in a look of mock offence. "Why, I'd have thought you'd be more interested in seeing me."

Jon crosses his arms. "You shouldn't be here."

Michael's smile grows only further. "There are a lot of things I shouldn't be, and I am all of them.”

“So you’ve just been... in your realm this entire time?”

“No, not quite,” Michael responds with a slow blink, the dragged out response serving only to unnerve Jon. “I’m not even sure how I, Michael, am appearing to you. I have become Helen, or at least, what once was me has become Helen.”

Swallowing, Jon pushes another question. “So, you’re just a part of my dreams?”

Michael reaches out with one of its long, disproportionate hands and flexes his fingers, watching its own hand move, like it’d never seen it before. “I do not know, Archivist. There is the possibility that through your dreams as the Archivist, you have pulled Michael out of the deepest part of what I am. We never truly stop being who we are, we more… Find new layers, find new people to be. If anything, that fact is the closest thing to humanity I have left.”

“I can save you?” Jon’s eyebrows furrow. “I can save Michael? The original Michael?”

Michael laughs again at this. “No, whatever is left of what was first Michael is changed beyond what one would consider ‘saving’. But _I_ am not. Though, it is amusing that you would consider it as rescuing me, when it is rather the mere act of leading me back to the surface.”

“Is this what you want?”

The freckles on Michael’s face seem to dance across its skin, even as it sits still. “Even I get lost in myself sometimes, and though I enjoy it thoroughly, I can admit that watching your games were a great source of entertainment.”

The edges of Jon’s lips quirk up. “If anything, it sounds like you were the one who missed me.”

At this, Michael leans in, its face closer to Jon’s than what could be logically possible. Jon doesn’t want to look to see how its body is contorting. “Are you sure you would want something like me to miss you?”

Jon’s not sure why his heart skips a shuddering beat, but it does.

“Well, you’re all there is right now.”

Michael retreats back to sitting normally- well, as normally as it can manage. “True, you are quite lost, aren’t you?”

Jon snorts. “That’s an understatement.”

“Do you even know where we are?”

Jon frowns, and it occurs to him he’s never tried to truly comprehend the place that he has found himself in. It’s as if there’s something in the way, something that turns all his thoughts to fuzz if he thinks past- his brain is already being filled with the familiar thick texture, like a too-thick milkshake, the kind that you can barely get up the straw. 

With a _hmm_ , Michael taps a finger against the table top, unintentionally creating a small nick on the surface. “It seems that you’re in quite a predicament, Archivist. I’m always a fan of losing oneself in one’s own mind but it would be quite a shame if you were to die here.”

Is he going to die here?

Jon flinches, because this time, the fuzz has become a sharp jab in the back of his head, like whatever’s in control of this really does not want him to be thinking about this.

“However,” Michael continues, “I doubt anything will take you at this moment, if nothing has already.” It tilts its head. “So, that makes me your only real company for now, doesn’t it?”

Jon would argue that he can’t even be assured that Michael is actually real, but he has a lingering suspicion that tells him that it very much is. And as Michael peers at him through wide eyes, something shifting under the green, Jon finally admits to himself that there is a sense of relief in getting back someone who had been a constant in his life.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Of course, Jon has to leave Michael’s realm eventually. The urge swallows him suddenly, several hours (not quite hours, there is no time here) and he shifts in his seat, suddenly cut off from what he’d be saying. He can’t even remember what it had been now.

Michael can sense the change too, now, and its smile doesn’t change. “You have to go now, don’t you Archivist?”

Jon nods. “I’ll be back.” It’s not a lie, he knows that he will find the yellow door again soon, he always does.

Michael stands up as Jon does, and Jon realizes with a start that he has never actually had to make his way out of the dream corridors before, so used to abruptly waking up in the middle of talking with Michael.

“I can show you the way out.”

So it does. It leads Jon through endless corridors, and he tries not to look at the paintings as they pass. When Michael holds open the door for him, Jon smiles out of thanks, a smile that soon turns into a startled gasp as Michael takes a step forward and wraps its too-long limbs (arms, he reminds himself) around Jon. For a moment, as the screaming tornado of noise starts churning in him, out of him, across him, he’s afraid, before he realizes that this is Michael’s attempt at a hug. Despite the overwhelming confusion, he makes a sudden choice to lean in and try to grasp his arms around whatever Michael’s torso is. 

Warmth fills him, the soft, fuzzy, bubbly type, and by the time it dissipates Jon is standing alone. The door is gone.

* * *

“ _Archivi-i-ist_ ,” Michael’s voice croons from every inexisting corner of the hall, right above Jon yet simultaneously far away.

Jon stifles as snort as he walks, having just entered its domain. “Yes, Michael, I’m here.”

He can practically hear the dramatic pout in its voice as it says, “And here I was beginning to suspect that you were avoiding me again.”

 _This is much more pleasant than everything out there,_ he doesn’t say.

Instead he peers into the paintings he walks by, searching for any sign of that twisted being. “Are you really going to play games with me, Michael?” He asks. All he gets in response is a giggle before an unmistakable hand is being placed on his shoulder and it feels like Jon is being wrenched back, pitching and falling and twisting through plummeting flashes and colors, dragged through shapes his mind does not even want to try and comprehend. He opens his mouth to scream, but then that laugh is back and it jolts him back into his body, in those ever-stretching corridors. Michael is in front of him.

“What the _hell,_ “ Jon chokes out.

“It seems as though it is not good for me to touch you today,” Michael says, oddly sweet-sounding.

“That- that’s never happened before,” he says, feeling returning to his fingers.

“True, but it’s your fault for thinking I am anything but deceiving. Unpredictability is my nature.”

Jon knows that this is his moment to remind himself that this thing is dangerous, that a few minutes of something like that would- how did it put it previously?- bend his mind past recognition. However, that familiar urge to _Know_ creeps into his gut. 

He needs to understand Michael, no matter how against its nature that need might be.

* * *

Against his better consciousness, Jon tries for another hug next time he finds Michael. Because the empty repeated horrors of this world have started to numb him, and his hunger for something new gnaws at him until he has his arms around something that should terrify him much more than it does.

He only gets a simple buzz of static.

Jon tries to hide his disappointment as it laughs, the sound echoing out of its chest and shaking him slightly. 

So he continues to try to search for brief touches, just wanting to finally get a grasp on the feeling, but they are difficult opportunities to find and it's even rarer that it even works. 

One time, Jon reaches for Michael’s hands. They’re standing across from each other in the middle of a park, the people around them those familiar blurs of shifting light. Jon picks up one of its hands delicately, making sure he only comes in contact with the palms before he figures out exactly how sharp its fingers are.

It's watching him, curious, as he runs his own finger over each knuckle in the hand that is too long yet not quite wrong enough. This time, the reaction is slow, like a slight breeze that gains intensity as yellow dandelions puff up and explode in his chest. And Jon realizes something he should’ve realized far earlier.

It has been far too long since he has truly touched someone, further than an accidental brush or a purposefully inflicted injury.

He should draw away, except its hand has shifted into something softer, less pointed, and as its fingers curl around Jon’s own till their hands are intertwined between them, clasped together in an unspoken whisper of comfort, he knows that it will no longer cut him.

Jon tries not to think too hard about the fact that he doesn’t let go for a long while.

* * *

Michael’s hair is long and thick. Jon brushes his fingers through the hair that’s splayed, curling, in his lap. Michael is lying on its side, foot tapping against the soft surface of the sofa that’s pushed into the corner of the restaurant.

Jon sometimes wonders where these locations come from. Vaguely, he suspects that they’re drawn from the memories of Michael Shelley. He doesn’t plan on bringing it up anytime soon. 

Running his fingers through Michael’s hair feels like… a vague clicking against his temple like nails on a polished countertop. It’s not awful, more just… particular. 

Jon has never known how to do hair in any way past the swept back style he was used to keeping his own hair in. Back in college, he’d always marvelled at the way that Georgie had been able to create such beautiful braids in her hair with a well-practiced hand. Maybe in another universe, he’d braid Michael’s hair like a schoolgirl at a sleepover, but for now he’s content with combing through the silky mass.

Michael is making a noise that is not unlike a purr.

Somehow, Jon knows that this is coming to an end soon. He can tell that he is soon going to come out of whatever world he is in right now, and that he is going to have to return to a life so complicated, so jagged and ready to destroy him.

He doesn’t know if Michael will be there on the other side.

Jon has a feeling that Michael senses this too, as it is unusually quiet the whole time that they are sitting in that position (other than the odd purring, of course).

After a while, he gets his confirmation as it shifts, hair rippling in a way that hair is not supposed to ripple.

“You’re leaving soon.”

Not a question, just a fact.

Nodding, Jon twists a lock of golden hair around the knuckles of a finger. “I think so.”

“Hmm.”

“Will you be… left behind?” Jon asks, cautiously.

Green eyes meet his, with a soft intensity that has always unsettled him. “Maybe. Maybe not. You are a strand connected to the real world, I have found my way out of your subconscious and of the Spiral’s. I do not know how much further I can go.”

Jon gave a weak smile, a reassurance to someone- who, he does not know. “We’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

Michael smiles.

Jon just wishes that he didn’t have to lose it again, especially when so far it's the only thing tethering him to his own consciousness (Which he can admit is quite the opposite effect of what the Spiral usually does to one’s mind).

* * *

There is a yellow door where there shouldn’t be one.

Jon stares the moment he notices it, about to sit down at his desk, as a relief floods his chest. It has been two weeks since he came out of the coma, and _there is a yellow door where there shouldn’t be one._

He enters immediately, his stomach doing a small twist of happiness as he walks through the familiar hallway. When he finds Michael, in a flower shop he has only seen in his dreams, he reaches up and takes its face in his hands and drags it down into a kiss, ignoring the way that his hands start to lose feeling and succumb to the white noise.

It is like… It is like the music from a dozen arcade games, all compounded together into a singular, mismatched chorus of so much that it becomes nothing. Cool waves washing over him as if he were at a beach, laying in the sand as the tide advances, sun scalding hot on his skin. Tumbling down a thousand stairs, hitting his shoulder on each one but not feeling any pain.

And when Michael places its hands on the curve of his lower back, carefully, it feels like familiarity and Jon is right here in the arms of something he should be afraid of, tasting pop rocks and blueberry and lips that should be wrong but are perfect all the same. 

Jon rests his head against its chest and takes several deep, slow breaths.

When he feels a laugh cascade from inside its lungs, there is no hint of antagonism or a lie. The only thing that echoes from the laugh is… is something so inexplicably beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you all enjoyed this <33 please feel free to leave feedback in the comments below, I really struggled with getting a grasp on how to describe Michael in writing.


End file.
